alt Hacker NewsIt wasn't hugely useful unless you also bought/built some sort of mass storage. Fortunately, Heathkit sold a paper tape reader! And a cassette tape interface! And something new and expensive called a 'floppy disk', but who could ever use that much storage?
In the same era (age 7-12) I went to school on an airbase in Germany and at some point “they” (no idea who) decided I should not do normal math, but should instead spend time with the Airmen who ran the computers. They had an Interdata-something-16 minicomputer which had both punched tape and teletype I/O. I played Oregon Trail on the teletype and always died of dysintery. I once asked the wise and aged Airman (he was probably 25), “can I punch my own holes in the tape and make the computer do cool things?” To which he responded “Yes. No.”